Neverwinter

Installed it a couple days ago up to 6 or 7 now on the cleric. I like it but going to test out some of the other classes still. I like to play it up to 10 first before I make a full decision because the first few levels go by so fast.

I joined Saturday morning, and I must say it's been great fun so far. In my head, I call the game "Lord of the Champions," because it reminds me of Lord of the Rings Online as if it were created using the assets of Champions Online. But I like this better than LOTRO for the sole reason that I have my fellow Stonewallers to talk with and ask help from. You guys really do make all the difference in my gaming experience.

Noviere: The facial costuming is the same as Cryptic uses for Champions, if that clarifies anything.

My partner and I have been playing it for the past week.

I'm enjoying the fresh combat and I like the pvp and foundry. Still, the game has some huge issues.

Lag. This has been the biggest problem for us. As exciting and fresh the pvp has been, it's usually ruined because of lag. My melee character has one hell of a time fighting ranged opponents. They easily dodge and outrun my attacks even though the game visually shows me hitting. The problem isn't limited to pvp though. Just running from one side of the city to another will frequently cause my character to 'rubber-band' back to somewhere in the middle.

MACROtransactions. I know this topic has been beaten to death but it's still a big deal. The game isn't shy to ask you for zen or astral diamonds where ever possible. I sprung for the Founder's pack and I still feel like I am required to drop more money.

Here is just a brief example of their microtransaction strategy:

I purchased a key (125 zen) to open a lockbox. The item inside was a purple (highest quality) rank 7 enchantment that could be used to enhance a piece of armor or weapon. However, the enchantment is actually upgradable to rank 9 which gives even greater benefits. In order to do this, you require four of the same quality items. Then, you have a 1% chance to succeed in the upgrade process. If you fail, you lose the item. The Zen store offers two alternatives to prevent this. For another 100 zen you get 10 chances which will prevent you from losing the item if you fail. Or, you can blow 1000 zen to have a 100% success rate. Yes, $10.

The entire cash shop is full of overpriced items. The fastest mounts available are 4,000 zen each. They can only be used on one character. They are not account unlocks unlike starships in STO. They also offer healing stones which will heal you in combat. The most expensive one is 1,500 zen for 200 heals. And worst of all, resetting your character's powers (abilities) is only possible by spending 600 zen.

Bugs. I realize that the game is in open beta. Still, they have basically made this a soft launch by allowing players to keep their characters and permit money transactions. Saying 'this is a beta' simply isn't a valid excuse in this situation. There are huge problems with foundry missions not working correctly. In fact, my foundry mission which I created several days ago still isn't publically searchable. I've also had errors entering instances, parties, receiving credit for kills and quests. The Auction House is barely usable with several filters not working at all. The queue system needs to be addressed. If someone leaves your party, 95% of the time you'll never get a replacement. In pvp this is detrimental.

The biggest known bug to date has been an exploit which instantly kills and respawns boss encounters; rewarding the player with end-game items. The exploit has existed for this entire week, persisting through several patches. Because there will not be a character wipe after open beta concludes, these cheaters have effectively ruined the economy. Even now, you can purchase the best gear in the game for a few thousand astral diamonds (dilithium).

Despite my gripes, the core of the game has a lot of potential and I really hope Cryptic can turn things around. I love the foundry, gameplay and really want to give them more money. But I won't be able to bring myself to do it until they actually fix these problems.

Interesting. I've seen little lag, don't feel pressured to spend money I don't have, and haven't really encountered the bugs aside the from the fact that the sparkly path occasionally leads me to the wrong place. I'm not meaning to contradict you, I just had no idea the game was having the problems it's had and I'm glad that you brought them up.

I don't do PvP (and love that I can advance easily in the game without it, unlike in Lord of the Rings Online), so I didn't know it was so bugged. I don't use the exchange (I know I'm losing in-game money, but I really can't figure out how they do the exchange in Neverwinter in the first place--far more complicated than in STO--and just sell all my stuff back to merchants instead). The only real problem I've had in the Foundry is finding missions that are clearly designed for group player, given the number of foes and all, but are not marked as such.

I really hope they clear out the bugs, because I am absolutely in love with this game. STO has felt very workmanlike for me lately and I've loved the change of pace.

So far i havent felt compelled to buy anything but i am only level 20. I can however see me wanting to get bank/inventory upgrades because im starting to get a bit full already.
Bugs wise i have yet to see any but like i said i have only experienced part of the content.
Lag wise i have been lucky i get the occasional bit of rubberbanding but that is it of course when i log onto today the game will lag like hell to punish me :P

All in all it seems like a fun little game, not sure i will be dedicating as much time to it as i have for star trek but i will probably keep playing it.

Quote by Kyle

Even now, you can purchase the best gear in the game for a few thousand astral diamonds (dilithium).

Wait, what!?

... I'm taking a trip to the Auction House tonight.

The game certainly has it's flaws and the pricing structure is a huge black mark.

I'm currently rocking a 12k gearscore and I haven't done a single end-game dungeon yet (not even a tier 1). I spent my Guardian pack astral diamonds on the auction house. I have replaced a couple of bits (helm and chest) since then with PvP gear (PvP Gear is purchased with Glory, and you can get enough pretty damn quickly) but I mainly did that because it looks better.

[attachment=1408]gearscore.png[/attachment]

If you has the cash, they has the win.

BTW: PvP in this game is awesome, the combat system suits it really well. They just need to expand it. At the moment there's only 2 PvP maps and they're both 5 v 5 capture points scenarios.

I honestly can't wait for the 20 vs 20 Gauntlgrym PvP.

So far, this is the only game where I've actually enjoyed PvP enough to do it multiple times. The fact that you can get equipment to use in PvE and the astral diamond incentive got me in.

That said, they really need to fix a major problem with PvP: AFKers. Because of the astral diamond incentive, people will join a match and then just sit there while they do something else. There really needs to be some sort of activity requirement for rewards. There is nothing more infuriating than being on a team that's getting its ass kicked because some selfish jackass is sitting it out.

My concern is that I think that PvP experience exceeds PvE experience by a game imbalancing amount. To the tune of 40% or so, in fact I also am annoyed that PvP gear is better than PvE gear and it has no stat restricting its use in PvE (for those keeping score, games usually fix this by incorporating a PvP stat into PvP gear to make it less effective in PvE).

Mob mixes in zone ending dungeons, while interesting, include too many different interrupts from too many different classes of critter. Making fights painful.

Trickster Rogues are overpowered and likely to be the first class to get the nerf bat. The class may attack out of stealth and remain in stealth...and are almost invincible in resisting the control of Control Wizards in PvP, and Guardian Fighters have an unbalancing amount of mitigation in PvP situations.

The game and setting are beautiful but serious attempts at game balance are needed or the game will quickly run out of control and while the open beta is a solid success, a considerable amount of exploit fixing is needed (AFK'ers in PvP, as noted by ChemKarate I consider an exploit, double eligibility for boss rewards is an oversight, although best I can tell this one is sporadic rather than pervasive but still needs to be plugged).

The adherence to the new Fourth Edition rules is a plus. All in all, a solid game that just needs to be fine tuned.

~J

Yeah, you're not the only person I've heard complain about Rogues being overpowered and the drastic imbalance between PvP and PvE experience and gear. However, I have faith they'll fix it eventually. I think Cryptic is taking it's time collecting data and determining the best course of action before they apply the next module, which seems like it might be time they'll apply these nerf bats and exploit fixes.

The use of 4th Edition rules confirms the belief of a friend of mine, which is that 4th Edition rules are built more for an MMO than for table-top. :P

Rogues are definitely not overpowered, i should know, i play one. :P

I have only played Cleric and wizard so far to level 32 and 6 respectively so cant really comment on how op or not anybody is (except wizard appears to be rubbish in PvE) but the thing I'd like to know is; When did we have a guild there? Where is it? I'm on Mindflayer by the way.

The guild kind of started spontaneously a couple of weekends ago. It's called Stonewall Guardians. I honestly can't remember what shard we're on, but since they're merging them all soon, we didn't think it was a big deal which one we were on.

And, for the record, my Rogue never ever uses Stealth. This old-school button-smasher can only keep track of so many buttons to smash. But I will say that I quickly switched from Cleric to Rogue as my main because I was tired of dying so easily.

Quote by Seannewboy

Rogues are definitely not overpowered, i should know, i play one. :P

Haven't played one, so I don't know how it compares. I only play my Control Wizard. That said, the level of complaints I've seen on the forums and in the game about Rogues is similar to what I've seen in other MMOs at launch right before a class gets hit with the nerf bat.

So... duck?

On a not-really-related note, do you get Glory for every PvP match? The reason I ask is that, in 2 of the 3 matches I've done, the reward I get is just equipment. Only once (when I was on a losing team) did it explicitly list Glory as a reward.

Quote by LesleyA

I have only played Cleric and wizard so far to level 32 and 6 respectively so cant really comment on how op or not anybody is (except wizard appears to be rubbish in PvE) but the thing I'd like to know is; When did we have a guild there? Where is it? I'm on Mindflayer by the way.

The guild is on Dragon since that seemed where most of the people were playing. Of course, there are members on the other shards. But as SiranNataan mentioned, Cryptic plans to merge the shards once the game officially releases.

On a not-really-related note, do you get Glory for every PvP match? The reason I ask is that, in 2 of the 3 matches I've done, the reward I get is just equipment. Only once (when I was on a losing team) did it explicitly list Glory as a reward.

I've noticed that too. But I believe that you get some amount of Glory from every PVP match. If you hit I and go to the wealth tab, you should notice an increase after every match.

I'm not sure if Rogue is OP or not, but I will say that I have never died despite this being my first/only character. Of course, I am only level 15-16... I forget, since I haven't logged in for about a week.

Their cash shop is a real turn off for some reason, and I don't want to invest my time in the game because it will probably only get worse.

I die occasionally with my halfling rogue--Level 26 with a cleric companion. But my level-10 elf cleric can't even cross the Tower District to start a mission without dying. If/when they release the bard class, I wonder if it will be more offensively minded, like in LOTRO. If so, I'll probably reroll the elf, since I based him off my old tabletop character and he was a bard originally.

The F2P model is the same as in star trek online which means the stuff in the cash shop is essentially fluff that you dont really need, everything in the game content wise is open and there for you and your not massively disadvantaged never spending a penny.
Providing they stick to the model they devised in STO :P

The last big "subscription model" game left is WoW, and they command large enough numbers to not really need microtransactions to have a long run, thus the cash shop is here to stay in all newer MMOs. As Milmar observes most of the stuff on this cash shop is cosmetic and kind of fluffy and not necessary to the overall game experience. I have spent Zen in STO twice (for the Vesta and some utility unlocks).

ymmv...